Methodological introduction

Table 5.1 presents the first revision by the CropWatch team of the global maize, rice, wheat and soybeans production in 2019, which was published last May. It is issued at a time when almost all winter crops in the northern hemisphere have been harvested and summer crops are in their late stages; in the southern hemisphere winter crops are growing and the planting of the summer season or the monsoon season will start in a month or so. A final update will be published in the November 2019 CropWatch bulletin.

CropWatch production estimates differ from most other global or regional estimates by the use of near-real time geophysical data and models.  They are based on a combination of remote-sensing models (for major commodities at the national level) and statistical trend-based projections for minor producers and for those countries which will harvest their crops later during 2019, for which no directly observed crop condition information is as yet available. In Table 5.1 below, modeled outputs are red bolded.  The percentage of modeled global production varies according to crops: 78% for maize, 84% for rice, 79% of wheat (most of it being northern hemisphere winter wheat) and 78% for soybeans. When considering numbers of countries, the percentages are smaller: 75%, 50%, 78% and 29%, respectively. While the percentage of countries and the share of total production will increase only marginally in the next bulletin that will be issued in November.

The 41 countries for which production estimates are provided are described in detail in chapter 3 while a whole chapter is devoted to China (Chapter 4). The 41 + 1 countries are referred to conventionally as the “Major producers”. “Others” include the 142 countries from Albania, Algeria, Armenia [...] to Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe. The total output for “other” countries was obtained by adding national projections for 2019 rather than projecting the sum. The reason for doing so is that countries sometimes phase out crops for a variety of reasons (e.g. soybean in Macedonia or Syria) and production projections that turn negative can be set to zero. This effect remains hidden when sums are projected.

The red bolded estimates in the present chapter are calibrated against national agricultural statistics (as opposed to FAOSTAT). This means that (1) sub-national statistics are used at least for the largest countries and (2) 2018 information in included in the calibration. It is also stressed that the calibration is crop-specific, i.e. based on different crop masks for each crop and that, for each crop and country, both yield variation and cultivated area variation are taken into account when deriving the production estimates. The major producers represent at least 80% or production and 80% of exports. “Others” and the countries shown in black in the production table were extrapolated to 2019 based on a combination of two linear trends from 2009 to 2017 and 2014 to 2018.

Production estimates

CropWatch estimates the global 2019 production of the major commodities at 1045 million tonnes of maize, down 0.5% from 2018, 736 millions for rice (up 1.7%), 703 million tonnes of wheat (a 1.4% increase) and 323 million tonnes of soybeans, 1.2% lower than last year’s output. The major producers contribute 964 million tonnes of maize (-0.1%), 667 millions for rice (+1.9%), 633 million tonnes of wheat (+1.5%) and 304 million tonnes of soybeans (-1.0%). The share of the “minor producers” (shown as “Others” in the table) to the global production varies from 6% (soybean) to 10% (wheat) with maize at 8% and rice at 9%. Compared with the final CropWatch estimates for 2018, the relative importance of  “others” did not change. Major producers outperform all “others”, in particular for maize (-0.1% Vs. -4.4%), rice (+1.9% Vs. -0.1%) and soybeans (-1.0% Vs. -5.0%), increasing the dominance of large exporters

The current estimate is one of the most pessimistic issued by CropWatch over the recent cropping seasons, in that maize and soybean performed poorly in the Unites States due to very unusual weather conditions. For the major producers, the current production estimate is below the trend for maize (-0.1% Vs. 3.1%), wheat (1.5% Vs. 2.3%) and soybean (-1.0% Vs. 4.9%), but above for rice (1.9% Vs. 1.2%) due to relatively more favorable environmental conditions in southern and south-east Asia than in the temperate northern hemisphere.

In China, the comprehensive CropWatch estimates posit the variation of maize at -2% and project positive changes for other crops, from 1% for rice to 2% for wheat and 3% for soybean.

Five countries that did well for all the cereals include Egypt and Pakistan (+11% and +10% compared with 2018), where the volume of cereals produced increased 2.4 and 3.8 million tonnes for maize, rice and wheat combined. They are followed by Argentina (+7%) and Brazil (+3%) where the output is up 5.2 and 1.7 million tonnes. Finally, the cereal production of the United States is up 1%, corresponding to 3.3 million tonnes, mostly wheat.

Table 5.1: 2019 cereal and soybean productions estimates in thousands tonnes. Although more complex situations do occur in the case of multiple cropping, numbers in black are trend-based while numbers in red generally corresponds to modeled crops that have been harvested or were growing at the time of reporting.  Rice is expressed as paddy. Δ is the percentage of change of 2019 production when compared with corresponding 2018 values

Maize

Similar to the other crops in table 5.1, the discussion concentrates on modeled estimates (those in bold red) rather than on statistical projections (black) that do not take current climatic and agricultural environments into account.

Countries that experienced large production increases include Argentina (+7%), Bangladesh (+8%), Nigeria and Pakistan (+8%) and Myanmar (+9%).  Reduced output is projected France and Germany (-5% and -7%, respectively), Philippines (6%), Mexico (-9%), and in Africa, Zambia, South Africa and Kenya (-10%, -12% and -18%, respectively).

The two top global producers did poorly with the USA at 364 million tonnes, comparable with 2018, and China at 217 million tonnes, -2% down from 2018 (refer to chapter 4.1 for details).  Significant increases in maize production are projected for Argentina, the 4th global producer (+7%) and for Egypt (+13%), Pakistan and Bangladesh (both +8%) and Myanmar (+9%) where the good performance occurs after one or more years of relative maize production stagnation or even drop (Egypt, Pakistan).

The production volume of the top 5 exporters (United States, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and France) is up 1.3%, equivalent to 6982 thousand tonnes (Table 5.2). This is about sixty times larger than the output the 6th through the 10th exporters (Romania, Russia, Hungary, India and Paraguay). Among the maize large maize producers and exporters only Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay did well. Demand is likely to increase as Mexico, the second largest importer after Japan, had a maize production drop of 9% this year. For the top 10 maize importers the increase in maize demand reaches 2404 thousand tonnes.  The balance of maize availability for the top 10 exporters and importers reaches 4685 thousand tonnes.

Rice

A drop in paddy production is listed for several major South-east Asian producers, including Thailand and Vietnam (both down 2% from 2018). Larger reductions occurred in Sri Lanka (-4%), Philippines (-6%) and Cambodia (-8%). The largest increases are listed for Iran (+10%) and Pakistan (+12%) and India and Bangladesh (+6% each) and, outside the Asia continent, +9% in Argentina.

Among the top rice exporters only India (+6%), Pakistan (+12%), Argentina (+9%) and (presumably) Italy did well. With both Thailand and Vietnam down 2%, the production of the top ten exporters is up 8347 thousand tonnes, equivalent to 3.3%. Among the traditional large importers, the production is up in Nigeria (+2%) and in Iran (+10%), so that the likely demand of the top ten importers is up 1971 thousand tonnes, well below the production increase of exporters. The balance of maize availability for the top 10 exporters and importers reaches 10.9 million tonnes, the largest volume among the monitored cereals.

Wheat

Poor performance for wheat occurs on all continents, starting with several countries of the general European and Mediterranean area due to unusual spring and summer conditions. They include Belarus (-7%), Poland (-5%), Morocco (-6%) and Turkey (-6%). Production drops also affect Australia (-10%) and South Africa (-8%) and, in central Asia, Kazakhstan (-11%).  Production is up more than 5% in Argentina (+7%), Egypt (+9%), Pakistan (+10%) and especially Iran (+16%), Mexico (+17%) and Uzbekistan (+37%).

Among the major exporters, production of wheat is significantly down in Kazakhstan (-11%) and in Australia (-10%) and to a lesser degree in Ukraine and Germany (-1%) and France (-2%). With increased production in the Unites States and Canada (+4% each) and Argentina (+7%), the production of the top 10 wheat producers is down 917 thousand tonnes or 0.3%. This is more than compensated by the improved output of importers (3686 thousand tonnes) which increased their production by 7.4%,  especially in Egypt (+9%), Iran (+16%) and Mexico (+17%). The balance of maize availability for the top 10 exporters and importers reaches 2769 thousand tonnes, which is unlikely to lead to any tension.

Soybean

Soybean production increased over 2018 among most the major producers, including Brazil (+3%), Argentina (+9%), China and India which both produced about 14.4 million tonnes, up 3% in China and 27% in India. The first producer, the USA, is second this year: down 13% from last year’s 112.6 million tons).

With the poor performance of the United States, the total production of the top 3 exporters is down 7093 thousand tonnes, and down 7971 thousand tonnes for the top 10 exporters as Brazil, Argentina and Russia (+8%), the only countries that did well, cannot make up for the difference.  All major Soybean importers did well, including  Mexico (soybean production up 8%), Indonesia (+1%) and especially China (+3%).  For the top 10 importers, the production is up 487 thousand tonnes. However, contrary to the situation listed for the cereals, the balance of maize availability for the top 10 exporters and importers of soybean is negative: -7484 thousand tonnes. The situation is made particulalry complex by the small number of soybean suppliers and by the swine fever outbreak in China which, according to some estimates, may eventually halve the national pig population and considerably decrease national demand.

Table 5.2: Comparison of 2019 and 2018 production of major importers and exporters as well as the change in the offer and demand 2017 and 2018. The table lists percent changes as well as absolute amounts based on table 5.1.

Note: About 15 countries that are not covered in Table 5.1 are part of the top ten importers or exporters. They include Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay among the exporters and, among the importers, Algeria, Benin, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Iraq, Japan, Korean Republic, Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Spain and Taiwan.